So now with some assistance from my friend Mr. Wikipedia; "the aerial roots grow down and around the stem of the host, their growth accelerating once the ground has been reached.Over time, the roots coalesce to form a pseudotrunk, which may give the appearance that it is strangling the host."

"They grow into thick woody trunks which, with age, can become indistinguishable from the main trunk."

"The original support tree can sometimes die, so that the banyan becomes a "columnar tree" with a hollow central core".

Especially on an old tree like this.

Beautiful, but I wouldn't want to be caught out late at night underneath one of these.

Friday, 22 November 2013

Now, this certainly isn't as bad a some monster concrete and glass c-c-c-condo, but a lot of the charm of old time Florida is slowly - or in some cases, not so slowly - disappearing.

Of course, if you talk to an alligator or an Osprey, they might say even the old style charm is long gone as far as they're concerned.

Then one would bite your leg off and the other would poke your eyes out. Now that's Florida!

Then you would stagger into a swamp and a poisonous Water Moccasin would bite you and thousands of malaria infected mosquitoes would also bite you.

A friend one told me that when most people think of Florida, they think of the little one mile strip all along the coast. When in actual fact [Ed. note: as opposed to your normal made-up facts?] 99% of it is scrub brush and what I've just described.

Oh yeah, and recently, this like....

As Florida - well, the Everglades anyway - is being overrun with huge pythons.

Florida recently had a contest to try aned catch as many of these snakes as possible. As they ere eating just about everything they come across.

1,500 "Python Hunters" signed up and the contest and it went for six months.

Result; only 68 pythons captured.

The picture above being one of the 68. It's claimed they said, "You should have seen the one that got away."

Thursday, 21 November 2013

If it isn't enough that national talk show hosts and comics are taking daily pot shots at Toronto's major, now small local columnists are also jumping into the fray.

But wait. This isn't about Rob Ford, Toronto's mayor.

This is about a Florida congressman, who was just caught buying coke in a "Buy & Bust" sting in Washington DC.

However, there are a lot of similarities with Rob Ford. This fellow is also a very popular figure. And has now admitted he has a drinking and a drug problem.

But people are standing behind him because they believe in the policies he was implementing.

Sounds familiar. So although Rob Ford has been disgraced and stripped of powers by city council, his popularity among Torontonians still remains remarkably high. Likely for the same reasons.

Now as part of the US TV coverage of this "Buy & Bust" story, stations are reviewing past indiscretions of other US politicians. Whew! Take a number - the segment went on and on.

So this congressman is in good company.

Not the least of whom - luckily for him - is Marion Barry, Washington's former mayor, who was convicted of cocaine possession - and reelected as mayor after serving his federal prison sentence.

He was also responsible - much to the delight of the junior congressman from Florida - for reducing cocaine possession to a misdemeanour. Which resulted in only a year of probation for the aforementioned junior congressman.

But on a personal note - regardless of whether you agree with Rob Ford's politics (and I think I know the answer to that one for most of you) - when they say he is a distraction to city council, I say, keep distracting!

Anything that keeps other politicians distracted from spending more of my money or making more laws that tell me what I can't do is fine with me.

Friday, 15 November 2013

Everyone has said he is a buffoon, not fit to lead a world class city.

But he's done it!

He has put Toronto on the world stage!

Of course, the usual suspects are all over this like Rob Ford on his wife's....never mind. The usual suspects being the Toronto Star and the CBC (above pics).

But CNN is also having a field day with it (above).

Even the stogy BBC can't resist these titillating details.

And, of course, every Late Night talk show host had better be lining up lots of very nice Christmas gifts for him.

In this piece, Jon Stewart was talking about the disaster the roll out of Ombamacare has been. But he said, for every cloud there is a silver lining.

Because although the roll out has been rocky for president Obama, it has not been Mayor-of-Toronto rocky. Or as he is now known, as he played a clip from a recent newscast "the crack smoking mayor of Toronto."

So there you go.

For everyone who complains that Canadians are perceived as polite, bacon eating beer drinkers, we now got some edgy, street cred! People will now look at you and say, "Dude, you're from Toronto? Right on!"

Recent example; was on a bus tour of a US city and as we were talking, I told the guide that I was from Toronto. Five minutes later, as we pass a building that was an ex-bordello and drug den, the guide said, this has been patronized by pirates and reprobates. And maybe the mayor of Toronto.

Urban Cowboy

Welcome

Hi, I'm Jim Arnott. For whatever reason, I've decided to create a blog. Why would someone want to read my blog? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

My shtick will be to post photos and comments using only my cell phone. Why? It's not because I'm too cheap to buy a real camera. Don't believe those rumours. It's because, well.......this is the only camera I choose to have. Yeah, that's it.

And based on this photo, maybe these low resolution babies are the way to go. Yikes!